I hit an unprecedented 4 projects in QA at one point there. QA, short for "Quality Assurance", is where we internally test features before they go live on the site to make sure they're not buggy and that they make sense. So basically what that meant for me is that I had 4 projects that I was building/fixing/testing all at once.
I might as well tell you guys what they all were:
Easter / April Fools 2008 "Events"
This was a small one and many of you have seen what I had to say on the subject. For those of you who haven't, check these out:
http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/t.39144505_128/#128
Quote:
I do feel as though this could have been avoided, and many of us saw this coming and wanted to do things differently -- but it takes a LOT of people to pull an event together, including artists, developers, writers, user-interface people, and the managers that keep everybody from these different departments working together smoothly. Project as big as events (which need to be turned around VERY quickly, relative to any other project we do) are hard to course-correct. The real issue is that we didn't have the right course to begin with, and there are more than a few of us who want to see that changed.
The good news is that as a result, we are planning some kickass events for later in the year (and yes, they'll be big and filled with storyline, unless something awful happens). As always, of course, things are subject to change outside of my control -- but if things stay on the track they are now, I think Gaians are going to be looking forward to an excellent event season.
Notice System
This is a system similar to our announcement system, except instead of going to EVERY user on the site, we can choose a subset of users to deliver the notice to. It's an alternative to using the PM system, which we can't use for mass-notifications. Some possible applications of this:
If a subset of users fell prey to a bug, we could notify them directly with a link to a thread on the subject
We did something like this for The Last Mimzy, but for any user that participated in a particular sponsorship, we could poll them directly after the sponsorship ended to see what they thought of something
If we want to survey a subset of users (e.g., users who registered on a particular day, users who used a particular feature, etc.) we could deliver surveys directly to them via the word bubble at the top
Quiz System Upgrade
This basically now allows us to use the Quiz System (previously used for the 4th Anniversary Event and several sponsorships) to do polls. Before, the quiz system just calculated a score and stored that score. Now, it will actually store responses that you choose, and will allow you to enter in text fields.
On top of that, since we added text fields to support questionnaires, we can now also ask for text responses on regular quizzes. For example, we could ask "What is the name of Ian's cat?" and instead of giving you multiple choice answers, we could instead have you just enter the name of his cat into a text box - which opens some interesting possibilities for the future.
We'll probably use this along with the Notice System, as mentioned before, to survey some users after sponsorships. This may seem like a nuisance at first, but it enables us to make our sponsorships better, in addition to allowing us to see how successful they are in informing users about our sponsors' products. This is good for Gaia, because if we can show sponsors that what we're doing works, we'll get better and better sponsorships going forward.
Quest System Upgrade: So finally this project is almost ready for release. I mentioned it at Wondercon, and it's been in a holding pattern for a long time. The short version of everything that's happening here:
A new, storyline-based, Gaia-specific quest involving multiple NPCs that results in a quest-only item (no, still not the longer-term backwings quest -- but these changes may enable that)
Lots of changes that fix longstanding problems with the Quest System, many of which will make creating new quests much easier.
Completely rewritten Quest Status page
Updated appearance
built-in support for Battle Quests when they come out
The Quest Status page will now actually update with no lag
You can delete quests that are expired/deleted from your quest log
From the Quest Status page, you'll be able to jump right to an NPC.
Each quest and quest step will now have a unique description, so the information in the quest status page will be much more useful and interesting
You can search quests by NPC and location (useful especially since eventually you may be on dozens of quests at a time)
Pagination for multiple pages of quests
Active quests and completed quests have been totally separated
You can now view a log of all the steps you've completed on a quest
"Freshest" quests (i.e., the most recently updated/added ones) will now appear at the top of the log
Updated NPC quest behavior in shops:
NPCs in shops will no longer bug you for expired/deleted quests
Quests no longer become unfinishable in shops when we do caroling or trick-or-treating.
We can now jump directly to quest NPCs in a shop that has multiple NPCs
When an NPC requires you to purchase something for a quest, the quest dialog will now appear immediately after the "You bought [item] for XX gold" dialog bubble
There will be a new "Quest Update!" button in shops whenever an NPC has quest dialog for you
Each NPC is now associated with a location on the site
Lots of other changes to support battle quests when battle is released
We can now have multiple NPCs reacting to a quest step (i.e., Rina could send you to give an item to Josie, and they would both continue to talk about the quest)
About 40-or-so other changes not worth mentioning because they happen on the backend or in the admin tools
The High Cost of Living
A lot of users have a lot of questions about the finances of Gaia, and CEO Craig was kind of enough to be clear on Gaia's costs. You can find details about all this stuff here - definitely worth reading!
Gaia Costs $25 Million Per Year
I'm late! I'm late! I'm late, I'm late, I'm late!
There's never enough time to talk about everything that's been going on, but I'll try to keep you guys posted whenever I have free moments!
Community Member
The Quiz System Update sounds pretty cool.
Unless you guys start asking really tough questions. D:
Then it won't be as cool.
Looks like you've been pretty busy with updating features.
I'm highly looking forward to the Quest.
And of course future Events.
I must start thinking of crazy plot theories for hilarity to ensue.
And of course; better late than never!
: DD <3